Gengels, friends dedicate Haiti orphanage

Saturday

Jan 5, 2013 at 1:00 PMJan 5, 2013 at 4:50 PM

By Shaun Sutner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Leonard F. Gengel is a brash, confident doer who persevered against odds to build an orphanage far from his family's Holden home after his teenage daughter, Britney, died in an earthquake here three years ago.

Today, at the dedication of the Be Like Brit Orphanage on a Haitian mountainside, Mr. Gengel broke down as he spoke to a Haitian and American crowd of more than 100, of seeing Britney's eyes for the first time on the day of her birth.

“Now I know that when those children walk into this orphanage, Britney's spirit will live, and I will see those beautiful eyes again,” Mr. Gengel, 52, said as he choked back a sob.

The hourlong ecumenical ceremony ended with a collective singing of the spiritual “Oh Happy Day,” led by a choir of Haitian teenagers.

Mr. Gengel and his wife, Cherylann, sang and swayed along with the visitors.

Meanwhile, five pastors, including two Roman Catholic priests from the U.S., a minister and professor from Becker College in Worcester, and a Haitian evangelical preacher and a Haitian Catholic priest, stood hand in hand before a wooden cross as the audience members all held hands too.

There was a sense of sweet sadness — recognition of the destructive power of tragedy coupled with the capacity to overcome grief with hope that the Gengels have demonstrated, observed many of those who have helped them in their venture.

With Mr. Gengel's Haitian construction supervisor, Kervince "Gama" Parayson, a former Athol resident, translating in the local Creole language, Mrs. Gengel remarked on this contradiction.

“It's a day of mixed emotions: It's a day of crying. I'm so proud of my husband and all he has accomplished,” she said of Mr. Gengel, an accomplished builder of many upscale homes in Central Massachusetts over the last two decades. “Today's a day for being grateful.”

The orphanage's formal opening in this coastal town about 70 miles southwest of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, comes nearly three years after Britney died in the wreckage of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010.

The Gengels' nonprofit, Be Like Brit, has raised about $2 million for construction. The couple's book, “Heartache and Hope in Haiti: the Britney Gengel Story,” was released this week, and a members group of about 70 Americans — including many Gengel relatives, were handed copies as they boarded planes in Boston, Newark and Miami for flights here on Friday.

Ross Pentland, 25, one of Mr. Gengel's nephews, spent four months in Haiti in 2011 helping to jumpstart construction of the sprawling concrete building, which is expected to house 66 children.

Seeing the building completed, Mr. Pentland, a Holden native now living in Florida, said it has been “pretty eye-opening” to see the freshly painted building, with its sweeping view of the sea and the town in the valley below, finally completed.

A top U.S. embassy official, Consul General Jay Smith, was on hand for the dedication, along with U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, who led Mr. Gengel and other relatives of quake victims into Haiti 11 days after the disaster.

“You've managed to take this tragedy and turn it into a sort of triumph of the human spirit,” Mr. Smith said, addressing the Gengels and their sons, Bernie, 20, and Richie, 17, who sat on the small stage behind him in a bright open courtyard.

“You make me proud to be a representative of the American people,” Mr. Smith said.The Rev. Debra Pallatto-Fontaine, a United Church of Christ minister and professor of teacher education and family studies at Becker, blessed the building.

“Creator God, we ask your blessing upon this space and for the parents, Len and Cherylann,” she said.